R.I.P., Mr. Bowie

I couldn’t believe it when I woke up this morning to the news that David Bowie had passed away. Because there had been so many celebrity death hoaxes, I started checking other news outlets. Not good. Then I checked the official David Bowie Facebook page and Twitter feed.

Oh, no. No hoax:

January 10 2016 – David Bowie died peacefully today surrounded by his family after a courageous 18 month battle… https://t.co/ENRSiT43Zy

Aw, crap, I thought. It’s true. The New York Times and BBC are reporting that Bowie died of cancer, type unspecified. Damn. Given Bowie’s long smoking history my first guess is that it was probably lung cancer, but who knows? It’s devastating, whatever the cancer was. He was supposed to be immortal! Certainly, he seemed that way, as he’s been my favorite musician at least since the early 1980s, when I was in college and first dove into his music other than the obvious hits on ChangesOneBowie. His music has been a huge part of my life, so much so that I can’t remember a time before it. Even in his fallow years in the late 1980s when his music was just not up to its old grandeur (indeed, his Glass Spider Tour was as close to a Spinal Tap moment as Bowie ever got), there was always still something there worth listening to. Then, with his resurgence in the 1990s to the present day he proved his relevance time and time again.

Bowie’s death is all the more depressing given that his latest album, Blackstar, is one of the best I’ve heard from him at least since the 1980s. I had been hopeful after hearing it Friday that there would be more where that came from. Alas, it was not to be. Worse, knowning what I know now makes his two videos from the album even more dark than I thought they were when I first saw them:

32 Comments

Like many I was excited to hear of the release of his new album. I confess I haven’t thought very much about his music in a long time until this notice and now this. Yes, it is a loss of a great talent.

I’m about your age Orac but the strange way I came to know of him was not through his music but through the movie The Man Who Fell to Earth”.

I first met Bowie when my older sister took me to the cinema to see “Labyrinth”. Not the brightest idea, as I was probably too young then, but Bowie’s image was fascinating. And only then I encountered his music. What a great loss.

I could not have said it better. The news hit me like a punch in the stomach. His music, his aura, was part of my life since my teenage years in Brazil, when I would struggle to understand the lyrics, mesmerized by the melody, his unique voice, his total beauty… handsome in so many ways…. It is beyond sad, he leaves a huge, huge gap. Yes, rest in peace, Mr. Bowie

He gave all he could. I wish it was more. I wish there were more like him. Sad to not have more. But … as sad as it is, what he has left us is … sufficient. We have been blessed. It would be rude to ask for more.

Snopes actually keeps tabs on many celebrities they think are frequent targets of hoaxes, and tries to put out verification or debunking (as appropriate) articles for those celebrities rapidly. So, for the last several celebrity deaths, including Bowie’s, the snopes article was the first to appear in my facebook feed. Of course, they don’t track every celebrity, and they’re not always right, and most of their other articles lag the hoaxes by a few days or weeks, but it’s useful to be subscribed to them.

Personally – I’ve always had mixed feelings about Bowie, and it seems my facebook friends often do too ….

I’ll miss him too. I loved him in “The Man Who Fell to Earth.” My kids were introduced to him in the movie “Labyrinth” (younger boy saw part when fourth grade teacher showed it during the day before winter holidays, but they ran out of time… so I had to rent to movie for all of us to see the whole movie, which they enjoyed).

His legal name has always been “David Jones.” He just could not use it for performing because The Monkees had just been created, with Davy Jones. While I did like the TV program for what it was, David (Jones) Bowie was very wise in his decision to not be confused with the other “David Jones” (who died at age 66).

I now have memories (and I don’t care if they are false) of enjoying watching “The Monkees” on TV as a kid and listening to “Space Oddity” on the radio during the late 1960s. (and now I know they are false because I watched the TV program in California, and “Space Oddity” came out when I was in Missouri and Venezuela… stupid Wikipedia).

He nearly killed himself with cocaine a long time ago. He had at least one heart attack according to a few sources. He was lucky to make it to 69–not exactly young, although I realize his fans saw him as ageless. I do respect famous people for keeping their pending demise quiet, as did Nora Ephron a while back as well. The new album has so much more impact because of that choice.

re #36:
“In the Ramtop village where they dance the real Morris dance, for example, they believe that no one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away — until the clock he wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life, they say, is only the core of their actual existence.”

Or in Bowie’s case, until the songs he made are all but forgotten – which won’t happen for a looong, looong time!

I am distressed to inform readers that Mssrs Bowie and Rickman will be discussed as ” victims of the for-profit cancer industry” on Wednesday by Mike Adams- who has neither shame nor sense- on his Talk Network internet radio show.